Novamont to double biopolyester output

Italy’s Novamont plans to double production of polyesters made from vegetable oil to 100,000 metric tons per year. The biobased polyesters are used in the company’s Mater-Bi line of biodegradable and compostable plastics. In 2011, Italy was the first country to ban the use of nonbiodegradable plastic shopping bags. That year, Novamont began making its biopolyesters in half of a Mossi Ghisolfi polyethylene terephthalate plant located outside Rome; it now plans to convert the other half.